5 Small But Chilling Details In 'Coraline'

5 Small But Chilling Details In 'Coraline' - Lightboxgoodman

by Evan Daisy on Oct 06, 2021 0 comments

Coraline, released in 2009, is known as a kid's movie with a terrifying edge. The plot alone - which centers around a young girl entering a parallel world where nothing is as it seems - is scary enough, but since everything onscreen in Coraline was hand-crafted by a team of 29 animators, the film has plenty of little, hidden details that elevate it from slightly unnerving to existentially horrifying.

Coraline - Paper Cut Light Box

The fandom of the movie is chock-full of theories about what the story really means, but these Coraline details you might have missed may just make you reconsider what you thought you knew about the world of the film.

1. The 'Welcome Home' Cake Proves The Beldam Is Lying

While the "Welcome Home" cake the Beldam makes for Coraline looks delicious (especially for being made out of plasticine), the piping on top may hold a clue about the Beldam's true intentions.

According to Redditor u/philo-soph-y: "The “welcome home” cake features a double loop on the O. According to Graphology, a double loop on a lowercase O means that the person who wrote it is lying. There is only one double loop, meaning she is welcome but she is not home."

2. The Beldam's Shadow Shows Her True Self

The Beldam ensures nearly everything in the Other World is perfectly suited to Coraline's tastes, but she apparently can't control the shadows on the wall.

As pointed out by Redditor u/EatASnickrz: "The first night after Coraline meets the other parents and goes to sleep, you will see the other mother's shadow as her real self, while the other dad has none."

3. The Years On The Candy Jars May Connect To The Ghost Children

When Coraline returns to Spink and Forcible's apartment in the real world after rejecting the Beldam's offer to have buttons sewn into her eyes, Ms. Forcible opens a trunk marked "Special Reserve" to reveal three vintage bowls of taffy. Ms. Spink then uses her knitting needles to dig out the seeing stone from one of the bowls.

Coraline - Pop-up template design

Each bowl is labeled with a year: 1921, 1936, and 1960. Fans surmise that these years - and, by extension, the taffy bowls - correspond to the years in which the three ghost children first went missing. By this logic, the bowl of taffy that Ms. Forcible brings Coraline to accompany her tea during her first visit would have been added to the trunk and labeled "2009" (the year the film was released) if Coraline had accepted the Beldam's offer.

4. Mr. Bobinsky's Medal And Blue Skin Point To His Dark Past

On the surface, Mr. Bobinsky appears to be an eccentric but harmless dilettante with a penchant for mice. His noticeably blue skin may simply seem like a design choice, but the medal he wears pinned to his shirt hints at a darker explanation.

The distinctive emblem is a real medal given to the "Chernobyl liquidators," those who helped clean up the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. If Bobinsky helped with radiation cleanup, this could explain his abnormally colored skin - it may be a byproduct of prolonged radiation exposure.

5. The Silhouetted Portraits In The Dining Room Could Be The Ghost Children

In the dining room of the Other Mother's house hang three silhouetted portraits of children. These more than likely represent the ghost children, the Beldam's previous victims whose spirits are still trapped inside a dark, hidden room in the Other Pink Palace.

Had Coraline accepted the Beldam's offer, she likely would have appeared as a fourth silhouette on the wall.

Coraline - Paper Mini-Showcase

What do you think about this movie? I think this is a spooky and meaningful movie not only for children but also for adults!

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